It’s been pretty quiet for Vado after his killer intro to the scene in 2010, followed by his signing to Interscope in early 2011. Since then, we haven’t gotten much from the Dip Set-affiliate and it turns out, part of it is because he’s not even on the label anymore! Grand opening, grand closing, huh? Find out what happened via an excerpt from his XXL interview below.

XXL: Last we heard from you, you signed that Interscope deal. Soon after things got quiet.

The Interscope deal, if you want me to be honest with you, I feel like I shouldn’t have even went all the way to the West Coast. I feel I should’ve stayed grounded with the New York labels. They understand and know me so they know how to handle me, they know what to do. You go all the way over there; they don’t know what’s going on. So now, I gotta fix everything up and I gotta work with their music. It was just a whole big difference to the point that I had to ask for my walking papers.

Just like that, you were able to leave Interscope?

Yeah. They were really under construction over there anyway so, they were like, Aight well here you go; you’re welcome to leave. I’d rather leave on that note than getting dropped or something.

So contrary to the rumors, you weren’t dropped from the label.

Never. I was never dropped. They gave me too much money. I walked off. They gave me the opportunity to leave so I left. They [weren’t] helping me in no shape or form. For example, with Chief Keef, they just threw his album out there without even building it or nothing. Interscope is the type where you just got to do it on your own. So you know like, TDE is helping Kendrick, Game is doing everything on his own, from getting the features and beats and putting it out on his own, so it’s sort of like play at your own risk over there. So I had to get back over here. I’m not over there on the West, I’m over here with people that’s seen me grow up at these labels. This is where I wanna be and they want me here.

So at the end of the day, did the whole Interscope situation become a learning experience for you?

Yeah, most definitely. As far as for the haters, good talents like me can’t be off the market for too long. You’ll hear eventually, trust me.